MIDDLE EAST: Eid al Adha animal slaughter sparks debate in Muslim world

Animal rights activists are speaking out against the treatment of millions of animals that will be killed and eaten during the Eid al Adha holiday, as suppliers and butchers are accused of ignoring religious edicts on humane slaughter.

On Friday, an Australian animal rights group reiterated its call for the Australian government to stop the sale of livestock to the Middle East after activists documented sheep in Kuwait and Bahrain allegedly being subjected to brutal treatment.

Australia is one of the largest exporters of livestock to the region, with trade totaling $297 million in 2009, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The group has already succeeded in banning livestock export to Egypt.

"In the same way that Christmas has become the peak time of animal suffering in the West with vast numbers of factory farmed animals slaughtered for Christmas celebrations, the Festival of Sacrifice is the worst time of animal suffering throughout the Middle East," the Animals Australia campaign homepage read.

A recent report in the Egyptian newspaper the Daily News featured butchers who admitted to ignoring Islamic hilal methods of slaughter in order to meet the high demand for meat. 

"Islam has put regulations for the slaughtering process ensuring that the animal is well treated before, during and after slaughtering and those who defy these rules are punished," Sheik Saber Taalab, former member of the Islamic Research Center in Cairo, told the paper.

Eid al Adha commemorates the old testament story of Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, for God. According to the story, Isaac was saved when God saw Abraham's faith and gave him a ram to sacrifice in place of his son.

Muslims around the world honor Abraham by slaughtering livestock, mostly sheep, and distributing the meat to the poor or cooking it and sharing the meal with family and friends.

Traditionally, many families choose to slaughter the animal themselves rather than buy meat from a butcher, and the smell and sight of blood fill the streets of many towns and cities. While these scenes make dramatic visuals for animal rights groups, defenders of the practice maintain that if done properly, traditional slaughter is a relatively humane way to kill an animal.

In some places, the debate over Eid al Adha is controversial for different reasons.

The sight of sheep's blood running through the streets of Istanbul is a vivid reminder of Turkey's ongoing struggle to balance its secular and Muslim identities and allay the underlying class tensions.

"The age-old tradition ... has become controversial in Turkey as conservative immigrants from rural Anatolia have migrated to Istanbul and other large cities, where it is neither easy nor welcome to slaughter an animal in the street," wrote Mustafa Akyol for the Hurriyet Daily News. "Doing so creates 'disturbing scenes' according to some urban Turks, and Turkish media outlets that have been complaining about encountering animals, and their bloody remains, in unexpected parts of the city."

--Meris Lutz in Beirut

Photo: Activists from Animals Australia took photos of animals they say are being improperly transported and killed in Bahrain for the Eid al Adha holiday. Credit: Animals Australia

Comments

[Emma]

Any religion that preaches cruelty is not worth following in my eyes. No DECENT God would ASK that you KILL and slaughter in his name? He creates life, should not you value it and respect it? Sick, cruel, horrific. These poor animals are treated like things, not living feeling breathing creatures.
How far back should we follow "traditions" - sacraficing humans? We evolve as a race, we do not stone people to death etc - why must you keep these outdated and cruel practises? There is no need. There is only human ignorance and cruelty involved here.
Shame on all religions that support such barbaric rituals as these. It is inhumane and it is ungodly.

[Trish P]

Islam hasn't come very far from brutal ancient times and displays its uncivilised practises with the excuse of religion. Muslims should long ago have replaced animal sacrifice with a symbol just as the Christians have symbolised the body of Christ with bread and wine.

[Fahd]

Wow all you hippies need to chill out. Killing this way is humane, its no different than killing in the slaughter house. The only reason people object is because its a muslim tradition. We'd rather not decapitate the animal instantly, that is lawfully wrong for us, or use stun guns; what about when there werent stun guns what was the excuse then?
These are animals, that are usually treated with respect, or supposed to be treated with respect(unlawful not to), they are well fed, and given water, prayers are recited and then the least amount of knife is to be used, instead of hacking away.
Anyway, i dont know about kosher meat how its more superior, like some other person says, but i would never eat it and i dont know any muslim who does, dont know where that came from. But its cut in the exact same way as muslims do, with one single cut, i simply see ethnocentrism in this argument.

Please hate on muslims and anything they do or their book says because its the in thing right now.

[bridget reye]

Don't kid yourself that sheep in Australia are treated humanely before slaughter. This is why its easy for Aussie farmers to send animals to middle eastern countries, knowing what cruelty they will suffer when they get there. In Australia we transport sheep long distances, including interstate, without food and water. Downers and injured animals are rarely attended to during the long journey, and if a member of the public wants to complain that these animals are being treated cruelly during the long transport or at saleyards - then good luck cos there are few inspectors to enforce our animal welfare law. That said, at least we have animal protection law, though they are rarely enforced. As members of the public who don't support cruelty - we need to demand that our govt ban the export of animals to all middle eastern countries. But equally important, we must also highlight to our govt that the public knows that Australian animal welfare law is not being enforced and state inspectorates are not adequately funded/resourced to do this job - and this isn't in the public interest.

[Dean Blake]

@ Jimbo - unfortunately kosher slaughter is banned in many countries out of anti-semitic prejudices; Norway, Switzerland for example, and in others. Hallal is not kosher. Recently New Zealand just proposed legislation in 2010 to outlaw kosher slaughter in retribution agasint their own local Jewish community allegedly in protest over the Gaza situation.
Halal slaughter is not the same as kosher slaughter. Comercial operations require strict heirarchial supervision; i.e. training, inspect the animal before slaughter for humane treatment before purchase (no downed animals or obvious injuries indicating farmer neglect or abuse), at least two present at slaughter as one acts as a witness, condition of the knife, testing and periodic replacement, seperate party inspects to determine if the physical evidence supports the attestations of the witnesses. Full blood drainage and by salting and washing. Then there is the break down tables and packaging in a secure facility. Inspection of the facility and treatment of employees, mental attitude of the slaughterer's is an issue as its a difficult task to not become hardened and take that 'hardness' outside the job, etc. Its labor intensive, expensive and compicated to guarantee humane slaughter of animals. Jews require this out of religious practice. Hallal has none of these requirements.

[sam]

jimbo has given a good guide to kosher preperation via wikipedia but it does not give all details.
for book readers there is a very basic easy to read set of books by the hebrew publishing company new york( compilation of jewish laws by rabbi soloman ganzfried)(kitzur shulhan aruh) easy to read and understand,and for people that do not understand hebrew they do have a translation to english by hyman e.goldin,llb. thank you.

[Jimbo]

I am not sure why the Halal tradition is so reviled except for religious prejudice. The Jewish "Kosher" tradition is almost identical yet you don't see French has-been actresses protesting against Jews.

Several years ago PETA and other groups liked to throw blood on rich white women wearing fur coats. At the same time every upscale African-American restaurant has numerous people wearing fur on Sunday brunch after church but you never saw PETA members throwing blood on elderly black women. Pann's on Sunday has far more fur on display than Manhattan.

From Wikipedia:

"Duties of the Shochet
In order to fulfill the basic law of shechita, the majority of both the trachea and esophagus (windpipe and food pipe) of a mammal, or the majority of either one of these in the case of birds, must be incised with a back and forth motion without violating one of the five major prohibited techniques, or various more detailed rules. The five major forbidden techniques include: pressing, pausing, tearing, piercing, or covering. A shochet must have studied these laws and demonstrate a thorough understanding of them, as well as have been carefully trained, before he is allowed to 'shekht' meat unaided.

Pressing is accomplished when the shochet pushes the knife into the animal's throat, chops rather than slices, or positions the animal improperly so that either its head presses down on the blade as it expires or the shochet must push the knife into the throat against the force of gravity. There are those who feel that it is forbidden to have the animal in an upright position during shechita due to the prohibition of pressing. They feel that the animal must be on its back, lying on its side, suspended upside down by a rope or chain, or - as is done in most commercial slaughter houses - placed in a barrel like pen that restrains the animal's limbs while it is turned on its back for slaughter. However, an expert shochet can slaughter the animal while it is upright without pressing the knife. This method is employed in most smaller operations in America."

[sam]

@allen.greetings.
sorry but kosher is by far better than halal, arab/muslim can and do eat kosher but we/jews can not eat halal as it is not prepared under the same strict rules allowing its consumption. thank you.

[Marian E. Carlstedt Glass]

PLEASE!!!!!! WILL EVERYONE STOP THE CRUELTY. CAN'T EVERYONE PUT THESE POOR CREATURES TO DEATH HUMAINELY ?????? THIS GOES AGAINST ALL OF OUR BELIEFS. THANK YOU.

[Allen]

As always you have a lot of mis-information by ingnorant and narrow-minded people that just want to push an agenda...Im sure that using a stun gun on a cow is much better than the halal method...BS! In order to quell ignorance there is a REASON for the halal method. If you decapitate the animal as in the western world, most of the blood remaings in the animal and therefore in the meat. In the halal method the animal must be given water and then the jugular is slit, making sure the brain stem is not severed. This way the heart continues to pump for a few minutes so all the "dead" blood will pump out. That is what makes meat Halal. If you want to make an argument that we should all be vegetarians then I can listen, but making uneducated remarks about Muslims cuz thats the fad right now is just typical american ignorance. Plus, science has PROVEN that halal meat is healthier than non.

[NIKA-USA]

Notice to readers. No comments are allowed unless approved by the author. Nice, perhaps the author might edit out contradictory facts. This is like something out of 1984

[NIKA-USA]

The halal (official Islamic mandated method) of killing an animal is NOT HUMANE, it is quite the opposite. The throats of these animals are slit while they are still conscious and they die in pain as they bleed to death. This is halal meat. On top of that a Muslim repeats a Muslim prayer. This is why no non-Muslim should eat halal or allow the spread of halal meat without protest. This is the procedure that Brigette Bardot protested in France and was taken to court over. She protested the abuse of animals by Muslims preparing halal meat. Secondly, the idea that "animals are slaughtered for Christmas" is an out and out lie. Christian observance of Christmas does not involve any rules regarding slaughtering or eating animal meat. Christians fully support only humane means of killing animals which are used by law in the United States. Livestock is first stunned knocking them unconscious before they are slaughtered. The stun gun works instantaneously and the animals feel no pain. By contrast, animals are fully conscious as they bleed to death under halal procedure. Videos of these procedure show that it can take up to 6 minutes for a full-sized cow to die this way. The pain and terror can be seen on the animal's face. Check out the facts folks.